The phone. The mobile device that turned us all into dutiful Internet addicts has pulled a 180 and is now lord high gatekeeper to the physical world as well.

“It’s not so much about Facebook Messenger. Rather, it’s this shift in how people think about and purchase really anything,” says Lisa Marchese, chief marketing officer at The Venetian in Las Vegas, which in May rolled out an option to book direct through Messenger, Facebook’s instant messaging service.

The move was a no-brainer, Marchese says. Using Facebook Messenger was a low risk, fast-to-market option for The Venetian that gave guests what they wanted: lightning quick room bookings using a very familiar medium.

The bot technology recognizes signals from guests’ questions, and The Venetian’s already learning from that and tweaking accordingly. The hotel initially provided a typical 60-day Las Vegas booking window but later adjusted it to 90 days after direct guest feedback via Facebook Messenger.

The cost to hotels for groups and meetings has been on the rise in the U.S. in recent years. According to a report from hotel benchmarking company Kalibri Labs, the cost, if left unchecked, likely will double by 2022.

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer has asked the FTC to investigate whether the airline industry is data mining consumer personal information in order to charge them airfares based on things like income and purchasing behaviors.

About Us

Trusted by 45'000+ hotel marketers around the globe, Hotelmarketing'com satisfies your professional appetite for intelligence: news and information that is changing hotel marketing today, curated from hundreds of sources, editorially distilled into a must-read briefing and delivered every business day straight to your inbox.